World Premiere Energizes Syracuse Symphony

Blame it on the weather. With the first major snowfall of the season outside, the Syracuse Symphony performed before a smaller-than-usual crowd on Friday night at the Civic Center. And for the first half of the program, it seemed to affect them, as the orchestra turned in an uneventful, nondescript reading of the Brahms Third Symphony.

These are professional musicians; they are paid to bring their best stuff every night--to play like it's their first, and perhaps last, time on stage. At least that's the idea. Musicians, however, are only human. They have bad days like the rest of us, and playing before a small audience can be disheartening. As intensity wanes, they slip into a going-through-the-motions approach to the music.

Of course, music director Daniel Hege didn't help matters through his tempo choices. I've heard very slow renditions of the the 1st movement of Brahms 3, particularly from Otto Klemperer. But his ensemble--the elite Philharmonia Orchestra--could pull it off. The Syracuse Symphony, however, does not possess enough weight or depth in their sound to sustain a slow tempo. While the cellos and basses are surprisingly strong, the violins produce nothing more than mezzo forte. Drama and shape cannot build when the dynamic ceiling is so low. And if the symphony was boring, I guarantee it wasn't Brahms's fault.

Yet in the second half of the program, the SSO sounded like a completely different orchestra. It began with the world premiere of Andrew Waggoner's Stretched on the Beauty, a concerto for for cellos and orchestra. Unlike Michael Daugherty's piano concerto Deus ex machina, which the SSO premiered in October and blatantly pandered to the audience through countless musical cliches, Stretched on the Beauty walks a fine line between obscurity and accessibility. The work challenged the audience with diverse colors, timbres, and harmonies, yet never felt overwhelming or too radical to appreciate. Dissonant moments were balanced by sections of gorgeous sonorities. The soloists--the CELLO quartet--and the orchestra were responsive to the score and each other, bringing energy and clarity to Waggoner's complex work.

Ottorino Respighi's The Pines of Rome closed the evening with the same passion. Hege drew inspired playing from the winds, particularly principal clarinetist Allan Kolsky. The finale, "The Pines of the Appian Way," features a stunning climax for the brass, and the SSO's didn't disappoint. Including an offstage brass choir, they molded an exhilarating conclusion.

Yet after the finale notes had died away and the audience filed from the hall, the concert seemed to be a missed opportunity. The Waggoner and Respighi performances succeeded resoundingly; it's too bad the orchestra used Brahms as a warm up.