Dazzling HRO Mixes Old and New Classical

You wouldn't judge a book by its cover, so why judge an orchestra by its program? Last Friday, the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra gave its second subscription concert of the year to an audience expecting the regal waves of sound and emotion displayed in the orchestra's first performance. Featuring works by 20th-century composer Luigi Dallapiccola, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, the intricate program additionally benefited from the presence of pianist Randall Hodgkinson. Though listeners may have been mystified by the opening pieces, it wasn't long before the nation's oldest continuously performing symphony orchestra revealed the source of its longevity--the quality and enthusiasm of its talented members.

Hodgkinson, a professor at the New England Conservatory of Music, opened the program with Dallapiccola's Quaderno Musicale di Annalibera, a set of 11 variations upon a twelve-tone theme that the composer created for his daughter and presented to her on her eighth birthday in 1952. In the pre-concert lecture, Harvard professor John Stewart illuminated, a la First Nights, the history of Dallapiccola's career and discussed points of interest like the Simbolo, a four-note theme derived from the letters in "Bach." As concertmistress Stephanie Misono turned the pages of his score, Hodgkinson breezed through the simplistic Simbolo and the succeeding variations, all the while displaying the technical precision that helped him win the International Music Competition sponsored by Carnegie Hall and the Rockefeller Foundation in 1981. Even more impressive was the lyricism integrated into his execution: the ascending conclusions of a number of the variations assumed a tentative, questioning tone under his fingers, despite the disjunction of Dallapiccola's composition.

After Hodgkinson's applause-accompanied exit from the stage and the discreet lowering of the lid of his piano, conductor James Yannatos took his place in front and led the orchestra into--surprise--Dallapiccola's Variations for Orchestra, a reiteration of the themes that had just resounded from the piano. If the atonal phrases had been disjointed in the piano score, they were fully severed and disconcertingly tossed together in the full orchestral rendition. Rhythms and chords seem to collide haphazardly; though the multi-instrumental texture of the piece gave greater depth to Dallapiccola's notes than the solo piano, dissonance still ricocheted madly through the concert hall.

The printed program attempts to defuse any violent reaction to the composer's contemporary style: "The piece is accessible to anyone who will open his or her ears and listen carefully to it, giving it as much attention as a film with a complex plot." This was correct in one respect: listening to Dallapiccola's Variations invoked the sensation of watching last year's Mission: Impossible. No matter how much one tried to pay attention to the plot's convolutions, one was continually plagued by the question, "What is going on?" while the sole consolation was the star quality of the actors. The performing members of HRO were the Tom Cruise of the evening, and quickly removed the sour taste left by the Dallapiccola with the sweetness of a Rach-maninoff rhapsody.

An immediate change in the spirits of both performers and listeners was evident after only a few measures of Rach-maninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. The trend in the evening's pieces was indeed one of variation, and the appearance of Paganini's familiar theme was a welcome divergence from the atonality of the first two pieces. In 24 variations for orchestra and piano, the musicians crisply passed the theme from one section to another with the vitality and enthusiasm that made the first HRO concert so appealing. The orchestra attacked each new alteration with unfailing skill, making the transition from treacherous pizzicato and spiccato sections into lingering waltz-like melodies seem deceptively easy.

The reappearance of Hodgkinson was well-received, too, as the interludes between full-orchestral sections allowed the spotlight to fall on Hodgkinson's effortless technique: his hands, often motionless, hovered over the keyboard while his fingers whirred underneath. Whether the cascading piano notes meshed with the backdrop provided by the orchestra or disappeared beneath them entirely, the combination was perfectly engineered. The audience showed its approval in wild applause, delaying intermission until Hodgkinson and Yannatos had been brought back three times.

With the piano removed from the stage during intermission, listeners were finally afforded an unobstructed view of the orchestra and Yannatos began Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 at a relaxed tempo that suited the melancholy chords and the march-like id'ee fixe of the piece's opening movement. While the technique of the string players received most of the attention in the Rachmani-noff, the Tchaikovsky incorporated multiple solo parts highlighting the wood-winds and brass.

Such was the case in the second movement, Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza, in which Tchaikovsky relies upon the French horn to introduce one of the composer's most effusively passionate statements, played with a slightly wavering but rosy tone by French horn James Bergman '99. All following events build upon the foundation established by the horn solo; Tchaikovsky's theme expanded into an outpouring of heroic proportions when taken into the hands of the violins.

The third movement waltz added a lighter note to the top-heavy symphony, and the interchange of pizzicato notes increased the diversity of texture yet again. By the final movement, the Andante Maestoso, one had seen fleeting smiles pass across the faces of more than a few HRO members, and the toll taken by the the grand volume sustained throughout the finale showed in the flailing of broken bowhairs in the orchestra.

Friday's finale proved no less majestic than the Dvorak of November, even though the orchestra had had less time in which to prepare their repertoire. Even the Dallapiccola pieces were bearable, if only for the novelty of watching Randall Hodgkinson and the talented orchestra attack the variations. Variety is, after all, the spice of life.