The program for this month’s Madison Symphony Orchestra concerts serves a double purpose. The featuring of members as soloists is an established idea. This time, conductor John DeMain also, in celebrating his twenty-fifth season with the orchestra, takes the opportunity to play some of his personal favorites. Two of them, in this case, are used to frame the whole concert, debuted Friday night at Overture Center.
Thus, things begin with Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 8, the “Unfinished.” DeMain infuses it with dramatic intensity, one feature of which is an extreme degree of pianissimo in the opening. In all, a strong performance.
At the back end is George Gershwin’s An American in Paris. DeMain draws every bit of brash, Broadway-style swagger out of the score. As a concert finale, it is guaranteed to bring the audience to its feet. And, of course, it does.
The program’s real meat, however, proves to be the contributions of the three soloists drawn from the orchestra’s ranks. The first of these is the concertmaster, Naha Greenholtz; her vehicle is Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2. In contrast to its spiky predecessor, it is warm and lyrical, something soloist and conductor coordinate nicely. But the score also has its very demanding moments, and these Greenholtz brings off with truly awesome facility. Of many performances of this work in recent Madison seasons, this was surely the most impressive.
After the intermission comes a not-so-familiar piece by Claude Debussy, his Première Rhapsodie for clarinet and orchestra. (There is no second one.) Much of it evokes the familiar atmospheric world of the composer’s “Afternoon of a Faun.” The writing for clarinet is quite idiomatic, and we observe Debussy exploring new worlds of harmony and color. The soloist is JJ Koh, of the orchestra’s woodwind section, a player of strong tone and fine artistic personality.
And then there is another concerto, a short one, for no less than tuba and orchestra. Its composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, was fascinated by unusual wind instruments. Against an orchestra bubbling with the English folksiness he loved, he pits his soloist in an unusually warm and mellow coloring, though not without showiness. Soloist Joshua Biere plainly has fun with it all, especially in clever cadenzas in the flanking movements. I did think, though, that the orchestra was overly loud in the balances.
That the MSO is such a superb ensemble is clear, and the display of members who are of superlative solo quality helps us understand why.
The program is repeated at 8 p.m. March 9 and 2:30 p.m. March 10 in Overture Hall.
