There was a change of scenery Monday night as Cascade Symphony’s dedicated ticket holders followed their community orchestra from its Edmonds home base to its new temporary home at the Performing Arts Center of Mountlake Terrace High School.
The orchestra is on the move while the Edmonds Center for the Arts undergoes renovations.The CSO will perform at Mountlake Terrace High School again April 25. There was a full house Monday in the 411-seat facility.
Monday’s program opened with Ravel’s “Mother Goose Suite,” featuring five pieces for children. Noteworthy instruments included an oriental drum, as well as stand-out bassoon in “Beauty and the Beast,” and a blending of concertmaster Stephen Provine’s violin and xylophone. Without a full complement of brass or cellos, these selections sounded more tentative than usual. That seemed, though, exactly what Ravel called for in these quiet pieces. Maestro Michael Miropolsky noted that Stravinsky compared this Ravel work with Swiss watchmaking for its precision and efficiency.
Next, Miropolsky introduced guest soloist Nathan Hughes, principal oboe of the Seattle Symphony, who performed Richard Strauss’ “Oboe Concerto in D Major” with the CSO. Hughes has a personal connection to the work: his teacher, John deLancie (who was principal oboist of Philadelphia Orchestra and director of the Curtis Institute) suggested the composition to Strauss when, while serving in the U.S. Army, he met the composer.
Before his performance, Hughes said oboists spend nearly as much time making their reeds as they do practicing.
“Reeds are always changing,” Hughes said. “That keeps things kind of lively. You never get bored.”
Hughes displayed great comfort and confidence as he played the challenging Strauss concerto completely from memory. His fine technique included flawless breath control, the inclusion of a staccato at just the right point in an otherwise legato phrase, a seamless blending of the oboe line with the orchestral echo, and a piercing purity, especially in the treble register. In the intricate third movement, he sounded as fluid and sweet as a songbird.
Miropolsky then introduced Mexican-born Silvestre Revueltas’ “Sensemaya,” noting that Leonard Bernstein characterized Latin American music as a mix of Indian, Spanish and African influences. CSO first violinist Rebecca Stephenson offered an insightful explication of the poem (“Chant to Kill a Snake” by the Afro-Cuban poet Nicolas Guillen) which inspired the work, as well as a Spanish reading of the poem that made clear the rhythmic connection between it and the music. This interesting piece featured striking passages on bassoon, percussion, tuba and bass. It had a driving, primitive, ritualistic sound made most explicit by trumpets and trombones. There was a lot of exciting downbeat while the volume swelled cataclysmically. Throughout, Miropolsky’s conducting was razor sharp, and obviously up to the challenge of this strenous programming.
The final selection of the evening was Khachaturian’s “Music from the Ballet ‘Spartacus’.” There was romance and drama in the first movement, a love duet for Spartacus and his wife. Miropolsky’s conducting grew in intensity as the tempo increased. The next movements (“Entrance of the Merchants” and “Dance of a Roman Courtesan”) had a strutting, swaggering quality and were punctuated by clarinet lines and concertmaster Provine’s violin. Trumpets ushered in a frenzied rush of sound, followed by the push and pull of violins vs. brass, and passages for piano and muted trombones. After the brief “Dance of the Pirates,” the work’s folk dance themes built to a furious, terrifically energetic finale one might liken to a freight train bearing down.
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