Cellist Miriam K. Smith, 12, became a concert performer at 8.
The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra opened its winter-spring series with a compact yet stimulating concert featuring a performance of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1 — one of the greatest works for this instrument in the concerto repertoire. This work begins a stylistic procession through Victor Herbert (yes, he wrote cello concertos!) to Antonín Dvorák and Edward Elgar.
The Jan. 25 concert had an added novelty: The soloist, Miriam K. Smith, is all of 12 years old; she began cello studies at 4 and became a concert performer at 8. She is now an accomplished professional with pitch-perfect fluency and a confident stage presence. She plays from memory, and is obviously working deeply into the literature for her instrument.
But despite her prodigious talent, her performance was immature. This concerto is a bold and swashbuckling work, which her sweet and small-scale tone simply could not realize. The orchestra constantly had to pull back to avoid drowning her out. And she displayed little ability in phrasing. That lack of nuance was further displayed in her flat and pallid playing of her encore, the Sarabande from Bach’s Suite No. 2 (which she clearly announced on microphone — setting a good example for other soloists). She is clearly a musician of great promise, but she needs to develop more muscle as she matures.
The sparkling opener was Domenico Cimarosa’s perky overture to his opera, Il matrimonio segreto (The Secret Marriage, 1792). The orchestra’s playing was strong, though I felt that the trumpets were a bit too loud in the balance.
The real musical substance was supplied in the program’s second half, which was devoted to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8. Falling between the ingenious Seventh and the colossal Ninth, the Eighth can easily seem almost trivial. But maestro Andrew Sewell’s insightful performance set it in a fresh and refreshing light. The orchestra, now set free, really let go in following him.
This effectively is Beethoven’s whimsical spoof of Haydn’s symphonies, and of the composer’s own style. Careful listening reveals an enormous amount of humor and satire. Sewell not only made this clear, but created considerable excitement in the process.
In his recurring habit of tackling familiar works of the mainstream orchestral repertoire, Sewell has scored another genuine triumph.
