2002 MSO Reviews •

Brahms is the perfect capper

By: Lyn Bronson
For the Californian

    PACIFIC GROVE – The Monterey Symphony under the direction of Maestro Kate Tamarkin wound up its 2001-2002 season Sunday afternoon at the Pacific Grove Middle School with a splendid concert of familiar music by Verdi, Mendelssohn and Brahms, and spiced up the concert with a work we rarely hear there days, Leonard Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms."
     Sharing the limelight with the Monterey Symphony on this occasion were the Monterey Symphony Chorus and its new choral director, Leroy Kromm. Kromm replaces founding director Kenneth Ahrens, who died last year. Kromm comes to us with impressive credentials. Also on hand for the occasion was the afternoon's soloist, countertenor Foster Sommerlad.
     After the opening work, Verdi's Overture to "Nabucco," a bubbling confection well known to concert audiences, we had our first opportunity to hear the Monterey Symphony Chorus in selections from Mendelssohn's "Elijah." The first thing we noticed is that the chorus has grown and it looked like a cast of thousands crowding the stage of the auditorium (actually, in reading the printed program, we learned that Kromm fleshed out the Monterey Symphony Chorus with members of an ensemble he conducts in San Jose, the Stone Church Choir of Willow Glen).
     Because of the placement of the chorus behind the orchestra, buried deep in the wings at the rear of the stage, it was often difficult to hear the singers clearly, especially the men's voices. Perhaps for this reason, the selections from "Elijah" didn't make as much of an effect as they should have, and it was a somewhat uninvolving performance.
     Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms" fared much better, for we had the impression that the chorus had finally warmed up and truly risen to the occasion. In the middle Andante movement, soloist Foster Sommerlad impressed us with his strong clear voice, impeccable diction and the beautiful, natural way he shaped his phrases.
     However, it was the Brahms Symphony No. 2 that really blew us away. Maestro Tamarkin really made the Monterey Symphony sound like a major orchestra, and we heard a performance that was rich and satisfying. The strings sounded better than they have for a long time, and the soloists in the various sections sounded terrific.
     What a way to end the season!

LYN BRONSON of Carmel is a pianist and a faculty member of the Music and Performing Arts Institute at California State University, Monterey Bay.

[Excerpts from] Symphony adapts with warmth and balance

BY NATALIE PLOTKIN
Special to The Herald

For the next-to-last set of concerts for the 2001-2002 season of Monterey Country Symphony, Music Director Kate Tamarkin came up with an oddly assorted, yet generally pleasing program.
     Reducing the size of the orchestra to almost chamber dimensions and changing the seating plan so the viola section was up front, as is usual in string quartets, gave an appropriate warmth and balance to the orchestral sound. These changes suited the music at hand very well.
     The program begins with Charles Ives' Third Symphony, "The Camp Meeting." It goes on to star Brian Anderson, the orchestra's principal trumpet in concertos by Molter and Hummel, and ends with the Schubert "Symphony No. 5."
     Tamarkin's remarks about the genesis of the Ives work, which is constructed on three organ pieces that Ives had composed and performed while yet a young church organist, were very instructive. She also had the orchestra play the individual hymn tunes he employed in the symphony.
     Ives wrote "modern" music years before our better known 20th century composers did, but he was writing for himself and not the general public, so that this symphony, composed in 1901, now neither shocks nor amazes the listener and it left a muted impression.
     As purveyed by Tamarkin and her musicians, we heard some impressionistic music, some now gently dissonant seeming, yet simple tunes, and much very carefully shaped musing and meditative music. There were even some lovely post-romantic sections. The orchestra was well disciplined and well prepared, showing a serious dedication to encompassing the challenges of the work which they did very well.

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