By Steven Brown
The Charlotte Observer
Thank goodness that Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" - which opened Friday's Charlotte Symphony concert - starts with springtime. To anyone who had just escaped the dry-ice winds assaulting Tryon Street, the music's sunny beginning offered a welcome refuge. Here's to escaping reality.
The relief came so quickly because the players - there and in all of these exuberantly descriptive concertos - offered so much to set loose a listener's imagination.
The musicians were a small, nimble group: 16 of the orchestra's string players plus a harpsichord; in front of them, the orchestra's first-chair violinist, Calin Ovidiu Lupanu, playing the solos that galvanize the music; and, as another driving force, guest conductor Michael Christie.
As a prelude to each concerto, Charlotte actress Susan Roberts Knowlson gave a lively reading of the poem that Vivaldi attached to his music to set the scene. So the mind's eye had something to work on even before the music began. The players took over from there.
They welcomed the springtime with buoyant, breezy dance music and - from a handful of exuberant fiddlers - the cheerful warbling of birds. At the start of the summer section, they made the music's short, sighing phrases sound like something drooping in the heat. But when the summer storms erupted - and even more when the winter winds cut loose - the players dug into every rumble and slash.
Lupanu filled the solos with life and descriptiveness. Sometimes he sang out melodies with the sleekness and silvery tones that epitomize polished violin-playing. But for part of the peasants' autumn revelries, he switched to the lusty, nasal earthiness of a country fiddle.
It was only fair that Lupanu had the night off after Vivaldi. Nevertheless, that meant the orchestra's string section did without him in Mendelssohn's "Italian" Symphony and a splashy novelty: Edward Elgar's full-orchestra arranged of Bach's Fantasy and Fugue in C minor, originally for organ.
In Mendelssohn's whirlwinds and the floods of sound in Elgar's souped-up Bach, the orchestra could've used Lupanu's additional sonic boost. But Christie led the group to put over Mendelssohn's excitement and sweetness as readily as Elgar's flashiness. Here and there, a strand of Mendelssohn wasn't as sharp as it could've been. But the Italian sunshine came through. |
