DATE: Monday, April 14, 1997                TAG: 9704140072

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B6   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Music Review 

SOURCE: BY PAUL SAYEGH, CORRESPONDENT 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   51 lines

SYMPHONY GIVES POWERFUL PERFORMANCE AS PRELUDE TO CARNEGIE HALL CONCERT

As a preview to its Carnegie Hall debut Tuesday, the Virginia Symphony gave Saturday night's Chrysler Hall audience ample proof of the high level of accomplishment it has attained under current music director JoAnn Falletta.

The orchestra's performance of a challenging, musically demanding program was outstanding in both its technical and interpretive aspects.

On paper, the program looked a bit odd, combining two composers - Samuel Barber and Sir Edward Elgar, who reside mostly on the fringes of the repertoire - with Adolphus Hailstork, who lives in Hampton Roads. Credit Falletta for putting together an effective concert, for this unusual mix appears to have engaged her and the orchestra's sympathies to an exceptional degree.

Barber's 1936 ``Symphony No. 1'' is a short, one-movement work that can be dismissed easily as old-fashioned and late-romantic, with its many rhetorical flourishes and intense drama. Falletta approached it with all the zeal of a true believer, and made the dramatic pauses and gestures sound with conviction. She treated the piece as if it were one broad gesture, so that the conclusion not only provided a powerful culmination, but made musical sense as well.

The orchestra's performance was arresting from its first notes.

The strings, especially, played with a big, sweeping tone one doesn't usually hear from them. Among many striking and beautiful moments, oboist Sherie Lake Aguirre's long and exposed solo at the start of the slow movement must be singled out for its bittersweet lyricism.

Hailstork's ``Piano Concerto'' was commissioned by the orchestra and first given by them in 1992. The second performance is a rarity, as much contemporary music often sinks without a trace after a splashy premiere. Such a fate would not be deserved by Hailstork's work, with its bluesy, moody slow movement, its demanding solo part, and its striking orchestration.

Once again, Leon Bates was the soloist, easily disposing of the technical hurdles Hailstork devised for the piano, and equally up to the challenge of the evocative opening to the second movement, announced by a horn quartet.

For the finale, Falletta chose Elgar's lovely and nostalgic ``Enigma Variations,'' a set of 14 pieces in which the composer portrayed his circle of friends. Falletta interpreted the variations with much charm, humor and sentiment, helped a great deal by the orchestra's very accomplished playing. In the moving ``Nimrod'' section, the musicians achieved a noble climax, while in the mysterious section called ``***,'' the emotional pain and sense of loss were powerfully expressed. The conclusion had all the exuberance the composer poured into this exceptional score.

The audience gave Falletta and the orchestra a standing ovation, a richly deserved and fitting send-off to a Carnegie Hall debut.

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