Mr. Brown Knows The SRSO Tapestry And Weaves It Well

by Terry McNeill
North Bay Classical Music

http://www.nbcm.org/ncbm_reviewsList.php?id=67

Week of February 12, 2007

It was familiar musical territory Feb. 10 as Santa Rosa Symphony Orchestra Conductor Emeritus Corrick Brown engaged his former colleagues in three works of long acquaintance. Mr. Brown, since the early 1990s, has returned annually to the SRSO, and each time his youthful and vigorous interpretations sound anything but dated. If it is indeed an “old shoe,” it fits rather well.

Beginning with the Brahms Academic Festival Overture Op. 80, a piece Mr. Brown could conduct in his sleep, the maestro adopted a leisurely tempo, emphasizing the rousing and sometimes raucous student songs which Brahms incorporated into the piece. A fine beginning, getting the nearly full-house audience alert to the coming masterpieces of Beethoven’s C Minor Piano Concerto, Op. 37, and the Dvorak Sixth Symphony.

Written just before the epochal Fifth Symphony, the Concerto has drama in spades, beginning with a long orchestral introduction deftly sculpted by Mr. Brown. The evening’s soloist, Shai Wosner, quickly demonstrated that the interpretation was to be collaboration, adroitly merging the piano line into the orchestral texture. Mr. Wosner plays the piano as well as SRSO soloist Jonathan Biss, but had much more to say about the work at hand than did Mr. Biss’ bland Schumann Concerto performance in December, 2006. Combining a light left hand staccato touch with a perfectly-graded right-hand legato, Mr. Wosner provided an ideal Beethoven reading. All evening his trills were extraordinary – precisely even, nuanced and subtle, and his exhibition of a graded pianissimo in the central E Major Largo was amazing. It’s far easier to play fast and loud than fast and quietly, and Mr. Wosner’s control was masterful. The frequent four against three rhythmic patterns were always firmly handled. A major pianist.

Antonin Dvorak, although living for a time in America, composed music squarely in the central European tradition, and Mr. Brown drove the orchestra happily through this bucolic, if at times boisterous, work. Kathleen Reynolds’s flute solos and the horn work of David Sprung brought a captivating end to the opening Allegro. The Adagio featured the entire horn section, with Mr. Brown underplaying the musical flow, enhancing the several short thematic interludes. A propulsive dance movement, marked “Furiant,” featured interplay between the contrabass lines and the timpanist Andy Lewis.

A Brahms-like piano motive begins the finale, but soon grows into a champagne orgy of orchestral sound, with off-beat accents throughout. Here the sonorous brass often covered the string sections, affecting the tonal balance, but the conductor let the violin sections have free reign when the theme returned, in a headlong rush to the end. It’s an exciting finale, reminiscent of the finale of the Tchaikovsky Fourth heard in this season’s opening concert.

Clearly Mr. Brown understands Dvorak’s Sixth, but almost of equal importance, he innately commands the hall’s bass-boosted acoustics for a full-throated sound, every section tellingly carrying Dvorak’s vibrant musical message. Finally, and of most consequence, Mr. Brown knows the SRSO sonic tapestry and how to build it. There is surely something to be said for familiarity, and the 50-year association between conductor and orchestra has ennobled our community.