Sunflower Music Festival saves the best for last

R E V I E W

By Timothy J. Jones

Special to The Capital-Journal

The final concert of the 2001 Sunflower Music Festival took place Saturday evening at White Concert Hall.

Those in attendance would have thanked the facilities managers for more air conditioning and better ventilation, but even when you are hot and uncomfortable, there is something exciting about a raucous standing ovation from a capacity crowd.

The ovation was well deserved.

The festival musicians under the direction of conductor Larry Rachleff saved the best music and most convincing performance of the week for this final concert, which opened with Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.

The Adagio is introverted, poetic music. And like great poetry, this music lingers with the listener's emotions as it unfolds. Rachleff led the ensemble in a deft reading, from the gentle opening and its melancholic caress to the urgency and tension of the climactic moments.

Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concert in E minor completed the first half of the program. Soloist Elizabeth Pitcairn was on the edge of magnificence throughout, easily overcoming the concerto's technical difficulties and occasionally providing bursts of truly virtuosic finesse.

The concert, and the season, ended with Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, "Eroica." An orchestra for Beethoven was a bigger thing than an orchestra for Mozart. Whereas Mozart's symphonies sparkle with 40 players, Beethoven's symphonies need 80 to thunder, with most of the additional players bolstering the string sections.

With its Mozart-sized string section, it was thus not surprising to encounter problems of balance in the festival chamber orchestra's performance, particularly in the loud and wild parts. A theme or melodic bit that happened to be bounced to the violins, for example, occasionally disappeared behind the rich tapestry of the festival woodwind and brass players.

But that is really just a quibble. Rachleff directed a vibrant, electrifying performance. It was as if each of the Symphony's many parts had a personality of its own, or that the piece as a whole had achieved some kind of heightened sensitivity that amplified the contrasts in dynamics, mood and texture. I heard and understood things in the "Eroica" that I had never encountered before, and the freshness of this performance will stay with me, and I am sure the audience as well, for some time to come.

The final chamber music concert took place the night before.

Operatic highlights from Mozart's "Don Giovanni" opened the program. Performed by eight woodwind players and one string bass, this arrangement --- made by one of Mozart's students after the composer's death --- tried to bring us the joy, drama and spectacle of opera without the things that are joyous, dramatic and spectacular about it: singers, costumes, scenery and most of the music. Cellist Steven Thomas salvaged what might have been a confusing --- and dull - -- presentation with a tongue-in-cheek narrative, but in the end it was simply short attention span theater for intellectuals.

Johannes Brahms' String Sextet faired a bit better, but this group of individually talented string players never coalesced into an ensemble. And although the festival musicians shouldn't be faulted for not breathing and bowing like a seasoned string group whose members perform together 365 days a year, it fell short of expectations.

The festival was a great success, and Topeka is lucky to have it. Larry Rachleff, we hope you return! And to all of the festival musicians, a hearty thanks for the memories.

Timothy J. Jones is general manager of the Topeka Symphony Orchestra.

Copyright 2001
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