Musical debut rich in promise
Sacramento Chamber Orchestra starts off with a strong program
CONCERT REVIEW
By William Glackin
Sacramento Bee Critic at Large
Bach: Suite No. 3 in D, BWV 1068
Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
Durufle: Requiem
Julia Bushkova, Violin
California Vocal Academy
Zvonimir Hacko, Conductor
The stimulating promise offered by the debut Friday night of the new Sacramento Chamber Orchestra in Westminster Presbyterian Church lay not so much in the professionalism of its performance, or even in the impressive conducting turned in by its founder and artistic director, Zvonimir Hacko, but in the music itself.
The program consisted of three masterpieces which are not at all minor -- not a whit less masterful because they are designed for forces of less than symphonic size.
For if a chamber orchestra by definition is not going to take on those works which need at least 80 or even more than 100 players, the other side of the coin is that the literature of music is loaded with great works which the bigger orchestras, by virtue of their size are not going to play very often.
That is why the Sacramento Chamber Orchestra is such an important addition to the community. And what makes it, in the face of the tragic loss of the Sacramento Symphony, even more valuable.
Friday's debut, which was to be followed by a second performance Saturday night, was attended by about 400. The number may have been disappointing to the orchestra's supporters, but may reflect the fact that the classical music community is still in a state of shock over the symphony's death.
But the performance, which won two standing ovations, should hold out hope for a better future. Some of the Sacramento Symphony's best players are in these ranks, and the orchestra played extremely well under Hacko's commands.
As it happened, the opener, Bach's Suite No. 3 in D, BWV 1068, is not designed to show off a balanced ensemble sound, especially within the reverberant walls of Westminster. Bach's three trumpets are going to overpower the strings every time, inevitably sounding brilliant but obtrusive. Hacko (pronounced Hatchko) maintained the stately pace of the opening regardless, and the Overture's quick middle section went well.
In the well-known Air, another virtue of a chamber-size ensemble made itself felt in the way you could appreciate how Bach balances the voices of the other strings under the serene melody the violins are singing.
Hacko took the rest of the piece at a lively, vigorous pace, and the applause at the end was unusually persistent.
Ralph Vaughan Williams' "The Lark Ascending," called a Romance for violin and orchestra, received a surpassingly beautiful performance from soloist Julia Bushkova, a native of Russia who has had an extensive European career, with Hacko and the orchestra, again numbering about 23, in sensitive accord.
The piece takes its inspiration from a poem of the same name by George Meredith which describes the lark's "silver chain of sound." Completed fairly early in the composer's career (1914) it reflects the love of folk music which already had profoundly affected his style.
The solo part, played in refined and ethereal tone by Bushkova, takes flight in a couple of striking cadenzas, eventually with solo voices of the winds wafting along as well. But equally striking is the way the composer weaves those single winds into the fabric of the ensemble sound, at first alone, then together. There's a country feeling to the music that's most affecting.
Donald Tovey once made the point that where a city composer like Beethoven would have to designate a symphony as "Pastoral," it would be superfluous for Vaughan Williams, whose natural musical habitat is the countryside.
The concert's greatest experience came after intermission, in the Requiem of Maurice Durufle (1902-1986), a work that is gradually coming into its own as one of the great Requiems, to rank, in its way, with those of Verdi, Brahms, Mozart and Faure. Hacko, too, came into his own in the performance, rising to the mellifluous, subtle, marvelously shifty challenges of the music with a flexible, supremely sensitive performance.
Paul Hillier did this work in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in early 1994 with a big chorus and only an organ accompaniment. It was powerfully good, but Friday night, with this orchestra joining the 18 voices of the California Vocal Academy (founded by Hillier but now led by Boyd Jarrell of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco), and Ladd Thomas on organ, it seemed movingly perfect.
The music is composed in layers of tone and harmony that build again and again to a rich mixture that is often spectacularly beautiful. Almost every movement begins with pure Gregorian chant and goes from there. The work is also true to the text in emotional ways, including the touches of terror in the threat of the fire in the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath).
It is common to say that the work is a peaceful one, and it is, but Hacko showed how grand, excited and even terrifying it can be. The performance was full of wonders.