LA Chamber Orchestra struts its stuff with program of Mozart, Stravinsky, Bach, and Handel at Royce Hall

April 5, 2013 Leave a comment

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra often plays larger symphonic works — and does so quite well — but one of the joys and privileges of having a standing chamber group like them is the chance to hear pieces written for small to medium-sized ensembles that a full-sized orchestra would not take on.  Their most recent concerts were laden with concertante works by Mozart, Stravinsky, Bach, and Handel — the kind of concert for which they are very well-suited and play at an extremely high level.

On the Sunday performance I attended at UCLA’s Royce Hall, this was clearly evident from the get-go with the evening’s opening piece, Mozart’s Serenade No. 10, Gran Partita, a seven movement work for wind instruments and a single double bass.  Throughout the 40-minute traversal of various moods, textures, and rhythms that Mozart tosses out, I couldn’t help but smile at the way melodies seamlessly passed between oboes, clarinets, basset horns, bassoons, and horns.  Music Director Jeffrey Kahane ensured that the ensemble playing and blend was impressively tight and well-balanced, with Allan Vogel (Principal Oboe) and Joshua Ranz (Principal Clarinet) playing some particularly beautiful solo moments.

After intermission came more of the same with three shorter works, the first of which was Stravinsky’s Concerto in E-flat major, Dumbarton Oaks.   Commissioned in the 1930′s for the 30th wedding anniversary of Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss (i.e. the owners of the Dumbarton Oaks estate in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC), the chamber work has the distinction of not having a prominent solo instrument as you’d expect a “concerto” to have.  Instead, each instrument in the ensemble has a few moments of prominence, once again showing off LACO musicians’ skills as both individual artists and as a coherent single entity.  Mr. Kahane led a performance that was nicely angular while also maintaining the long line.  For me, the outstanding performance of this rarely heard gem was the biggest treat of the evening.

Read more of this post

Filed under All Reviews, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Music (News & Reviews), Reviews 2012/2013 Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Jeffrey Kahane and LA Chamber Orchestra shed new light on familiar works

December 13, 2012 Leave a comment

Jeffrey KahaneSaturday night’s Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra concert featured a first half with a rustic sensibility and a second half with an urban vibe.  Both halves were anchored by an American classic in a less-often heard rendition:

  • The country mouse portion featured Dvořák’s Serenade for Winds paired  Appalachian Spring Suite in Copland’s original 1944 version.
  • After intermission, the city mouse segment  began with Son of a Chamber Symphony by John Adams before ending with the original jazz-band orchestration of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

The program wasn’t billed that way, but the links were very easy to make once you heard it all.  It was a crafty move by Jeffrey Kahane, the orchestra’s Music Director and conductor for the evening, who also did double duty on the piano for the Copland and Gershwin. A packed Alex Theatre crowd responded enthusiastically, even to the lesser-known works.  It was the latest example of LACO showing off their depth and range in diverse repertoire.

Appalachian Spring was particularly rewarding.  The work was commissioned by Martha Graham, and Aaron Copland wrote the score for her dance company without knowing what the story of this particular ballet would be about; but despite the composer having made no purposeful link between his music and Appalachia, the work has become the iconic invocation of an open, pre-industrial America.

The grand orchestration that is most commonly performed offers a broad, cinemascope rendition of this ideal.  In contrast, LACO’s performance of the original version had a raw, edgy quality that seemed to more accurately reflect the bleak challenges overcome by the rural-folk and American pioneers of the listener’s imagination.  And at a time when folk-inspired musicians such as Mumford and Sons, The Lumineers, and Avett Brothers have justifiably captured wide attention of the masses, Copland’s spare-sounding chamber scoring actually felt more current.

Read more of this post

Filed under All Reviews, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Music (News & Reviews), Reviews 2012/2013 Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

The final course: LACO’s Westside Connections 3 with Susan Feniger

April 17, 2012 Leave a comment

Margaret Batjer, Maia Jasper, Roland Kato, and Andrew Shulman: a vividly realized Ravel String Quartet in F

It was Holy Thursday and a few days before Passover,  and therefore rather appropriate that the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra would serve up the final version of this year year’s food-themed “Westside Connections” concerts as a kind of last supper.

Margarat Batjer, LACO’s concertmaster and series curator, mentioned that the initial premise for the evening was to salute the influence of great French music and cuisine.  Curiously, the only food-themed music came from a Czech composer, and the guest chef joining them for the evening, Susan Feniger, became famous for NOT cooking French cuisine.

Be that as it may, the best moments of the evening were definitely French.

Read more of this post

Filed under Food, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Music (News & Reviews) Tagged with , , , , ,

%d bloggers like this: