ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 23, 1996 TAG: 9601230099
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: CONCERT REVIEW
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
Finalist No. 3 gave it his best shot Monday night at the Roanoke Civic Center, and the RSO's search for a new music director is now more than half finished.
Leslie B. Dunner led the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra through a well-planned program that included Copland, Stravinsky, Brahms and a new work. But no matter how many matches the maestro tried to light, the players failed to kindle, except for a few brief moments.
It was not one of the RSO's best nights - in fact, the orchestra sounded downright ragged through most of a very long evening. Dunner is the third of five finalists for the position of music director and conductor of the symphony.
The players have only just returned from a long break, which may have affected their playing. And two of the four pieces were unfamiliar and quite difficult, which undoubtedly had an effect as well.
But to paraphrase the movie ``Cool Hand Luke,'' it also seemed that what we had here was a failure to communicate. For whatever reason, players seemed to be missing their cues all night long, coming in slightly off the beat, and simply not playing together. Dunner and the RSO might well make beautiful music together at another time, but it wasn't happening Monday night.
First out of the gate was Aaron Copland's tribute to the dance rhythms of Mexico, "El Salon Mexico." It was a lackluster performance; in the words of one veteran local musician, "Soda pop without the fizz." Trumpeter Jim Kluesner, in what may have been an omen, got off to a bad start on the very exposed lip trills in this piece. Kluesner recovered well later in one of the most trumpet-intensive nights the RSO has had in a long time, with solos seemingly every 30 seconds through the first half of the concert.
The "Tre canzoni senza parole" of American composer Bernard Rands are the most substantial new works so far in a season that has featured one new composition each concert. Befitting "three songs without words," the short pieces were lyrical, direct and accessible. The last of the set seemed designed to communicate some great grief and made a powerful impression.
The last work of the concert's first half was Igor Stravinsky's "Symphony in C." Stravinsky has not been a frequent name on RSO programs, and this performance did little to endear the composer to the civic center audience. The orchestra simply sounded unrehearsed. At one point in the rhythmically complex third movement, the string basses at stage left and the violins at stage right were a good half beat off from each other - and I don't know who was right. The piece got polite applause.
Making a somewhat better impression was the great Symphony No. 4 in E Minor of Johannes Brahms, which had the second half of the program to itself. Though there were good, even moving, moments, the performance as a whole did not cohere. Dunner's square-cut stick technique and body language varied little from section to section as the piece progressed. It seemed that the players were getting little of the communication they needed from the podium to mold this great and spiritual utterance into the transcendent music that it is.
There were, however, some shouts of bravo and a brief standing ovation at the work's conclusion.
Seth Williamson produces feature news stories and a weekday classical music program on public radio station WVTF (89.1 FM) in Roanoke.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 linesby CNB