DELIRIUM MUSICUM
ETIENNE GARA, Music Director & Violin Soloist
ZOLTÁN KODÁLY (1882–1967)
Háry János Suite: Intermezzo, (1927)
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS (1835–1921)
Danse Macabre, (1874)
GABRIELLA SMITH (B. 1991)
Desert Ecology: V. Cactus-Yucca Scrub, (2023)
ERIK SATIE (1866–1925)
Gnossienne N.1, (1893)
MAX RICHTER (B. 1966)
The Four Season Seasons Recomposed: Summer, (2012)
I. Summer 1, II. Summer 2, III. Summer 3
PHILIP GLASS (B. 1937)
Echorus, (2008)
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797–1828)
Erlkönig, (1815)
JESSIE MONTGOMERY (B. 1981)
Banner for Solo String Quartet & String Orchestra, (2014)
ANTONIO VIVALDI (1678–1741)
The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto in F Minor “Winter”, Op 8 No.4, RV 297, (1725)
I. Allegro non molto, II. Largo, III. Allegro
Delirium Musicum. Well, if that name doesn’t grab you ... What a fun concert. This spunky, funky LA-based chamber orchestra was making its Naumburg Orchestral Concerts début. In fact, it was their NYC début, as well. The first work (Kodály) was rollicking but not too much so. And it was a great way to start a concert. There were nice violin solos throughout, and the piece was a series of small vignettes strung together.
Almost all of the works were fairly short. Up next, the Saint-Saëns began with twelve gongs (most likely from an electronic keyboard) signaling midnight. Let the dance begin! Indeed, we were off to the races in a spooky waltz. It was lots of fun.
The Smith piece was written for this group and, while I didn’t actually see them, the composer called for paper clips to be attached to the violin strings. It was modern sounding but listenable, tended to wander, and ended rather abruptly.
The Satie was calm and almost hypnotic, in that Satie-esque way. The Richter, as the title implied, was recomposed Vivaldi, seemingly as an homage. A little static at times, it was hard to decipher the ends of movements, but the third Summer was very brisk.
The Glass, which opened the second half of the concert, was typical Glass—fairly repetitive and, in this case, relatively calm. And that’s that for Glass.
The reworking of the Schubert was familiar to me, as I know it as an art song. There was nice fleshing out for the string orchestra, and it captured both the tunefulness and the drama.
The Montgomery was a patriotic pastiche without being saccharine. The string bass was used to good effect as a percussion instrument creating an omnipresent drumbeat. Even though it was described as being for solo string quartet and string orchestra, I never quite got the sense of the string quartet.
The concert closed (sort of) with the real McCoy—Vivaldi. After somewhat shamelessly begging for an encore, the first movement ended with a fine flourish. The audience responded very enthusiastically. The director/violin soloist then explained that there were two more movements. The second movement—Largo—was lovely, while the third Allegro was also strong and bright. We got our encore. Even though it was described from the stage, Misirlou (used in Pulp Fiction) meant bupkes to me. It was pleasant enough, and the entire concert was oh, so much more than pleasant. I hope Delirium Musicum makes repeat performances in future Naumburg concerts.
Just prior to the concert, I had a bit of a fun situation. The WQXR host, Jeff Spurgeon, was in a small broadcast tent. When he had a small break, I went up to him and introduced myself. I used the name that I post comments with on WQXR—DuckDeadeye—and he knew exactly who I was.
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