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YOUTH ORCHESTRAS PLAY WITH VIRTUOSITY, VIGOR
Author(s): Ellen Pfeifer, Globe Correspondent
Date: March 12, 2002
Page: E5
Section: Living
The level of accomplishment of high school orchestras in this area is quite remarkable. Even in some of the most difficult music of the repertory, these ensembles play with a virtuosity not to be heard in many of the second- and third-tier professional orchestras around the country. It is a maxim often repeated to these high school musicians: They may never again play in orchestras as good as these. Consider the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras' Sunday night concert. In the first half, the younger Repertory Orchestra, under Joel Bard, offered a credible performance of Hindemith's virtuoso "Symphonic Metamorphoses."
The second half was devoted to Brahms's great German Requiem, with Federico Cortese conducting the Senior Orchestra and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Some of the textures were a bit muddy, and Cortese's tempos sometimes dragged. But the performance built up a nice head of steam in the more apocalyptic passages, such as the sixth movement depiction of the Last Judgment.The chorus sang gorgeously in quieter sections, notably the opening "Blessed are they that mourn." Occasionally, though, the sound became harsh and opaque, as in the fugue that concludes the third movement.
Baritone James Maddalena brought his customary expressive gravitas and tonal elegance to the bass solos. Soprano Jessica Jones, however, slurped and shrilled her arhythmic way through the erstwhile aria of comfort and consolation.
But it was the orchestra's night to shine, and there were fine performances by cellos, basses, and violas (especially in the first movement, in which the violins are silent), by the wind instruments, and by timpanist Joseph Jones.
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