Saturday evening's concert by the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra may have been billed as a Spring Rhapsody, but if anyone came to Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts expecting pastel hues and light, frilly fare, they got disabused of those notions in a hurry.
With works by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakoff, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Richard Strauss on the bill, it was a night of big sounds and grand gestures.
The program began with Rimsky's "Russian Easter Overture," a festive depiction of Russian Orthodoxy's Easter liturgy, complete with incense, icons, glowing candles, bearded priests, modal chants, fluttering angels and church bells chiming to the glory of Mother Russia's earthy, exotic celebration of the Resurrection.
An episodic work to be sure, the overture is a great joy, with the composer's flair for instrumental color and evocative harmony carrying the day whenever it's played well.
As he's shown before, ASO Conductor Jose-Luis Novo is not in a hurry. So while there was plenty of excitement as the festivities were joined, the pacing was held back enough to let the exultation build out of clear harmonies and unrushed statements of the melodic themes. Thus did a work that can be a bit of a brassy blur take on admirable substance and shape. Bravo.
The "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini," Rachmaninoff's de facto piano concerto built on the well-known tune from Niccolo Paganini's 24th Caprice, is a tribute to the composer's ingenuity and to the evergreen spirit of romanticism that bursts forth from his music. The soloist for the occasion was Orli Shaham, the sister (and frequent accompanist) of mega-violinist Gil Shaham, the wife of St. Louis Symphony conductor David Robertson, and a fine pianist in her own right.
Shaham gave us a bouncy, energetic run through the score that was attractive and fun, but not exactly the last word on romantic sensibilities. I wouldn't go so far as to call her glib, but I didn't hear her plumbing the depths, either. That job was left to Maestro Novo, and once again he did not disappoint as he saw to it that the eclectic score unfolded naturally, even as he dug deeply into Rachmaninoff's luxurious phrases when the lyricism of the music permitted.
One excellent example was the famous 18th Variation, where Shaham laid out the sumptuous inversion of Paganini's theme plainly, without much lilt, leaving it for Novo to make the interlude come alive.
I can't resist a quick aside. The last time the ASO played the "Paganini Variations" was in 1990, a concert I remember well because it may have been the worst performance of anything the ASO has given in the last 20 years. I won't mention names but, my goodness, how far this orchestra has come.
That level of progress made it possible for the orchestra to mount a fully credible artistic assault on Richard Strauss' "Death and Transfiguration," a dense, expansive, intricately conceived commentary on matters of life and death that's so difficult to bring off that most provincial orchestras steer clear of it. What a thrill to hear Strauss' "Do not go gentle into that good night" message speak so eloquently.
Capping off the program was "Beneath This Stone," Kristin Kuster's entry in the Annapolis Charter 300 Young Composers Competition that the orchestra is sponsoring this year. Her work, a musical tribute to the pulses and rhythms lying beneath the surface of Annapolis, was nearly twice as long as its two predecessors in the contest, which gave it time to say something. Its lyrical interludes are full of plush harmonies, and I like the repetitious, minimalist-inspired urban beat, which might be subtitled, "An American in Annapolis on Groundhog Day."