Author: BILL JONES
“Summer Vacation” was the theme of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s opening concert in its 2011-12 River Rhapsodies chamber music series. The program, performed Tuesday night at the Clinton Presidential Center, was another delightful offering that emphasized musical variety.
The Rockefeller Quartet (Christian Baker and Darby BeDell, violins; Katherine Reynolds, viola; and Daniel Cline, cello) tackled one of the central works of the chamber-music repertoire, Claude Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor, op. 10. The quartet produced a combination of tonal richness and technical austerity in each of the four movements. Classical restraint and Romantic passion were conveyed throughout in the strong cello lines and the sweetly expressive violins and viola.
The Etesian Winds (Diane McVinney, flute; Beth Wheeler, oboe; Kelly Johnson, clarinet; Susan Leon, bassoon; and David Renfro, horn) performed Two Girls on the Beach, Looking for Different Places to Put Down Their Towels by Michael Torke, the orchestra’s first Composer of the Year. Torke’s witty 2005 composition was lyrical and comical at once. Accompanied by onscreen narrative titles similar to those used in silent movies (“The sand is awfully hot on their feet”), the musicians, clad in beachwear, provided an exceptional musical treat. Torke’s minimalism was unobtrusive in the group’s fluid handling of the piece.
It is impossible to single out a high point in the concert, but violinists Andrew Irvin, Kiril Laskarov, BeDell and Baker came close with their precision and cohesion in Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins in B Minor, op. 3, No. 10. Adding impeccable support were Katherine Reynolds and Ryan Mooney, violas; Daniel Cline, cello; and Carl Anthony, whose harpsichord accompaniment supplied solid grounding for the group.
Bringing the evening to a stunning conclusion were the Wild Beats (pianist Tatiana Roitman, cellist David Gerstein and violinist Geoffrey Robson), whose vigorous rendering of contemporary composer Paul Schoenfield’s Cafe Music, a brilliant fusion and sampling of different musical styles, and whose elegant take on tango master Astor Piazzola’s “Summer” from The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, made one wish the “Summer Vacation” could go on indefinitely.